by Rick Church, Head Coach, CM Services, Inc. The Association Management Company

Don’t Think Leadership Matters? Ask Goldman Sachs

There has been a lot of buzz this past week about an opinion letter written to and published in the New York Times last week. The letter was written by an executive at Goldman Sachs who was resigning from his position and from the company.

I know it’s easy to dismiss as a complaint from a disgruntled worker – and maybe it was just that. However, isn’t that fact in and of itself enough to say there is a leadership hole at Goldman Sachs?

Below is a link to the letter, read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions. My conclusions are these:

1. As much as good leadership can help propel organizations forward toward their mission, bad leadership can ruin organizations.
2. Bad leadership can mean many things but the roots of bad leadership are not complicated. The roots of bad leadership are: Lack of values or focus on the wrong values; Inability to establish and communicate the mission or the organization.

In the case of Goldman Sachs (if you believe the article), the leadership was bad because of both these issues. They did not have the right values and they were not focused on the right mission. In fact, it appears they may have been focused on the wrong mission – their own personal ones – not that of the organization.

Good leaders never put their own personal agendas before the mission of the organization they lead.

About Rick

Rick Church is Head Coach of CM Services, Inc. The Association Partnership Company. CM Services pioneered the concept of developing long-term partnerships with national and international trade associations and professional medical associations. Mr. Church has published articles and given presentations about association leaders (both volunteer and paid). Mr. Church served as president of the Association Management Company Institute (AMCi). While on AMCi's Board of Directors, Mr. Church was very involved in the development of the AMCi/ANSI standard for Association Management Companies and the AMCi certification program based on that standard.